Consolidated Aircraft

Consolidated Aircraft (and later Convair) had their headquarters in San Diego, California, on the border of Lindbergh Field (KSAN).

Consolidated's first design was one of those purchased by Fleet from Dayton-Wright, the TW-3 primary trainer, sold to the U.S. Army as the PT-1 Trusty. In September 1924 the company moved from the Gallaudet plant in Rhode Island to new facilities in Buffalo, New York, and in the same year won a U.S. Navy contract for a naval version of the PT-1 designated the NY-1.^[1]

Lawrence D. Bell served as the Operating Head at Consolidated from 1929 to 1934. When the company made plans to relocate to San Diego, Bell decided to stay behind to start up his own company, the Bell Aircraft Corporation, in the former Consolidated plant.^[3]

In September 1935 Consolidated moved across the country to its new "Building 1", a 247,000-square-foot (22,900 m²) continuous flow factory in San Diego, California. The first production PBY Catalina was launched in San Diego Bay in 1936,^[4] and the first XPB2Y-1 Coronado test aircraft made its first flight in 1937.^[5] Consolidated vice president Edgar Gott was responsible for securing the company's contract to design and build the B-24 Liberator bomber.^[6] The XB-24 Liberator prototype made its first flight in December 1939, and the first production order was from the French in 1940, just days before their surrender to Germany; six of these YB-24 Liberators were designated LB-30A and ferried to Britain.^[7]

In 1940, Consolidated bought Hall-Aluminum Aircraft Corporation and dissolved the company. Archibald M. Hall was President of the company at the time and later became an executive of Consolidated. Several other Hall-Aluminum engineers and technical people were added to the Consolidated staff to meet defense production needs.^[8] By the fall of 1941, Consolidated was San Diego's largest employer with 25,000 employees, which eventually expanded to 45,000 by the following year.^[9][10]

In November 1941, Fleet sold his 34.26% interest in Consolidated for $10.9 million to Victor Emanuel, the president of the Aviation Corporation (the future AVCO), with the idea that Consolidated would be merged with Aviation’s Vultee subsidiary.^[7]

During World War II, Consolidated found itself unable to return its delivery pilots to San Diego fast enough due to lack of transport, the flying boat services of Pan American Airways being overwhelmed. In response, in 1942 Army Air Corps chief General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold ordered creation of a dedicated service to return pilots to the US, initially with two LB-30s, a version of the B-24 that was built for the UK. This became a new Consolidated (and then Convair) division, the military contract airline Consairway,^[11] which pioneered the use of land-based aircraft across the Pacific, dramatically reducing prior travel times.^[12] By war's end, Consairway was flying from California to Manila up to four times a day^[13] before being shuttered at the end of 1945, having carried 100,000,000 ton-miles and 300,000,000 passenger miles. Consolidated was the only manufacturer to sponsor such an operation.^[14]

In 1943, Consolidated merged with Vultee Aircraft to form Consolidated-Vultee Aircraft or Convair.

In March 1953, General Dynamics purchased a majority interest in Convair, where it continued to produce aircraft or aircraft components until being sold to McDonnell Douglas in 1994. McDonnell Douglas shut down the division after just two years of operations in 1996.